


I Can't Stand The Taste Of Leftover Wine

by Anonymous



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mention of Past Suicide Attempt, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:55:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29688456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Steve is tired of all the bullshit in life.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26
Collections: Anonymous





	I Can't Stand The Taste Of Leftover Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Leftover Wine" by Melanie.
> 
> Just wanted to get this out of my head. Mentions of drinking, drug use, and suicidal thoughts/past suicide attempts but nothing graphic and nobody dies. Let me know if I missed tagging anything.
> 
> Thanks for reading and be safe!

He swipes a bottle of his mom's favorite wine before he leaves for work. She might notice it's gone; she won't notice he is.

Time trickles by, an endless parade of false cheer and complaints and questions he's heard a million times now. He's bored out of his mind, wishes Robin was working today. But she's studying for exams. _She's_ going to college. _She's_ moving on.

He's so stuck he might as well be in the Upside Down.

He wonders what good it is to save the world if this is all that's left. Selling his soul for minimum wage. Everyone leaving him behind. Bullshit.

He closes up, gets in his car, and drives to the quarry. He takes the bottle from the trunk, and he's struggling to open it when movement in the shadows catches his attention.

His fingers reflexively tighten around the bottle, but it's not a demodog poised to attack.

Billy looks just as startled to see him.

"The fuck you doing here, Harrington?"

Steve grips the bottle. Plants his feet.

"Same as you."

Billy sneers at him, hands jammed in his coat pockets, and they stare each other down, breath misting in the frigid air.

Steve gets back in his car. Opens the passenger door. Billy climbs in next to him.

He holds out the bottle. Billy takes it, swallows a long gulp, hands it back.

Steve studies him, recognizes the tension and guilt and fear in every line of his body, even through the coat.

They pass the bottle back and forth in silence, until Steve can't be quiet anymore.

Maybe it's the wine. Maybe it's the night. But he needs to know.

"Were you ever, you know. Disappointed? That you woke up?"

Billy stares out the windshield, into the shadows and the woods and everything lurking there. "Every fucking day."

Steve thinks of the pills he took from the medicine cabinet, washed down with some of his dad's most expensive scotch. Thinks of waking up on his bedroom floor dizzy with failure and the worst hangover of his life. "Me too."

Billy looks at him, then. Steve shrugs, takes another long drink of wine, passes the bottle back. Their fingers brush when Billy takes it.

"I've got more," Steve says. "At my house."

He's not quite sure what he's proposing. He only knows he's tired of boredom and bullshit and being stuck. He's tired of being alone.

He waits for Billy's nod before he starts the car and turns the heater up.


End file.
